


Part of the Whole

by doctormccoy



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Bond Mates, Brief Descriptions of the Aftermath of Violence, Dubious Space Magic, Established Relationship, Established Spock/Jim/Mccoy, Eventual Happy Ending, Grieving, Guilt, Haphephobia, Happy Ending Epilogue, Hurt McCoy, Hurt/Comfort, Isolationism, M/M, McCoy POV, McCoy swears a lot, Minor Character Death, Misuse of Jefferies Tubes, Pining, Punishment, Recovery, Touch Starved McCoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 13:35:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9493745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctormccoy/pseuds/doctormccoy
Summary: “Personally, I’m a mess of conflicting impulses—I’m independent and greedy and I also want to belong and share and be a part of the whole.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> “Personally, I’m a mess of conflicting impulses—  
> I’m independent and greedy and I also want to belong and share and be a part of the whole.”  
> -Richard Siken, "Crush"
> 
> This takes place at some point during the five year mission. I wrote this so it can be interpreted as either TOS or AOS verse, whichever you prefer to read it as, but does ignore the Into Darkness story arc.

Leonard is convinced that the tragic sequence of events leading up to this exact moment of hellish torment will remain with him for the rest of his life. A life which, if he were to believe the Zenobian responsible for all this, could be as long as an eternity if things didn’t start going his way.

It all starts with only the smallest of signs, as do most things in life that end in tragedy. The absence of life signs from the ship you were approaching. A wet cough you just can’t shake. Coming home to your wife after pulling a double at the hospital and finding another man’s jacket hanging up by the door. 

In this instance, it’s when the Zenobian King’s son is late to the feast that has been arranged to honor their Starfleet guests. McCoy had beamed down early that morning with Kirk, Spock, Lieutenant Uhura, and two red shirted security ensigns he’d never met. Jefferds and Ahmed, he wants to say, but he can’t be certain. He supposes it doesn’t really matter now. 

Between one bite of the overly sauced food and the next there are guards rushing into the room, the prone body of the boy cradled limp in the arms of one of the King’s advisors. The deep purple skin that characterized the people of Zenobia V has gone a sickly pale lilac and there’s blood around his mouth. Leonard remembers the way he hesitated, and he recalls with startling clarity the deeply ingrained instinct to heal going to war with his complete unfamiliarity with the biology of the Zenobian species. If he couldn’t save the boy and tried anyway the result of his failure could be completely catastrophic with regards to the Zenobian peoples’ relationship with Starfleet, and they desperately wanted the mineral resources of this planet. 

In his lonelier moments, he recalls the utter faith he places in Jim to make the call when he looked at him, silently begging him, pleading with him through the bond, to give the order as the Zenobians around them panic. The world slows down and then there’s Jim and McCoy, Captain and his CMO waiting for the order. 

The Zenobians had arranged for the feast to take place on the top of their holy mountain, a four hour uphill hike that McCoy quietly bitched and moaned about the entire way. His body still remembers the ache of the climb and Leonard knows there is no time to retrieve a doctor for the Prince, and the crowd of diplomats and advisors were even more useless than Leonard in this situation. Jim’s expression had shifted only a fraction of an inch as his genius brain worked all of that out in the blink of an eye and a grim determination settled into the frown lines around his mouth. Leonard wonders when those had started to form and how he’d missed them all this time. 

“Doctor McCoy can save your son. He’s the best Starfleet has to offer and if anyone can do this, he can.” 

Jim sounds so assured in that moment. He truly believes, with all his heart, that Leonard can cure a rainy day if he put his mind to it. 

It really is quite a pity that his faith had been so misplaced. One look at the boy is all McCoy needs to determine that his services are well and truly not required. He didn’t even need to glance at the results of the scan he did with the medical tricorder he always carries at his hip. The Zenobian Prince is dead and even the great Doctor Leonard H McCoy couldn’t bring him back. 

The best guess he can make with the muddled readings his tricorder provides is that the kid had suffered the Zenobian version of a stroke due to an undiagnosed intracranial aneurysm. The excessive exercise from the climb to the mountain top, combined with the stress of the event and the thinner atmosphere, had caused the aneurysm to rupture. He would have been dead in a matter of minutes and all the medical expertise in the world wouldn’t have been able to save him without access to the necessary equipment. 

Leonard explains as much to the King, far more delicately than his usual gruff bedside manner afforded, and recommends that the King himself be scanned. Aneurysms often have a hereditary component, at least in humans though, according to Leonard’s scans, the Zenobian biology isn’t actually all that different from theirs. McCoy has to wonder if that might not be responsible for the sudden passing of the Queen a few years prior, according to the brief history Spock had provided in the Zenobian culture packet given to the members of the landing party. 

The raw fury the Zenobian King suddenly unleashes upon him had been anticipated. Leonard is used to the abuse and vitriol of grieving family and loved ones. He embraces it, even, as a necessary part of the healing process. It’s easier to blame a person for his failings than to accept the often uncontrollable nature of death and disease. So, he just stands there silently and accepts the violence of the words unleashed by the King, arms folded behind his back and a grim expression on his face. 

What he doesn’t expect is to be knocked to his knees and dragged bodily to the altar that only minutes before Leonard had been admiring for the beauty of its craftsmanship. He hears Jim’s voice off to the side, growing louder and more desperate in its protests against his treatment. 

The Zenobian King stands before him, and Leonard grunts in pain as he is all but thrown to the smooth stone at his feet, like he’s merely yesterday’s garbage rather than a living, breathing person. The King exchanges a hard edged glance with Jim and McCoy sees the grim expression on his bond mate’s face. This isn’t good.

“Doctor McCoy, you have sentenced me to a life of solitude. A life bereft of the only joy I had left. I shall never again know the touch of my son, the singular delight that my wife had given me before her passing,” the King’s voice announces smoothly, the electronic translator doing nothing to lessen the pure cold fury of his tone. A distant part of Leonard’s mind makes him horribly and suddenly aware of the part of Zenobian culture that Spock had openly admired in his culture packet, the part Leonard had been teasing him for before they had energized. Zenobians, like Vulcans, distance themselves from physical contact with strangers, but are otherwise an extremely physical species. Zenobian family groups were tight knit and shared a deep emotional intimacy due to the self imposed seclusion, an ancient cultural custom designed to promote purity and chastity. Zenobians mated for life and once one’s mate is gone there can be no other. The King’s son had been the only family he had left and now he too is gone, leaving him well and truly bereft of any kind of physical comfort.

“I’m sorry,” Leonard croaks, his voice as brittle as the tenuous grip he has on his self control. “I truly am. I couldn’t save your son. I.. I grieve with thee.” The Vulcan phrase falls so naturally from his lips and he feels the pulse of Spock’s despair through the bond Leonard shares with him and Jim. Spock has figured out what is going to happen now even if Jim hasn’t realized it just yet. 

“So you accept the charges laid against you, then?” the King asks blithely, cruel, flinty black eyes staring down at him as if he were a distasteful insect he wishes to quash beneath the heel of his boot and nothing more. 

Leonard looks sideways at Jim and Spock, tightly restrained by the gloved Zenobian guards. He remembers whispering in Spock’s ear when they arrived at the planet’s surface, noting the long sleeves and high collars of the Zenobian dress appear strikingly similar to the traditional Vulcan garb Spock owns. To protect themselves against accidental impropriety in public, Spock had whispered back. Leonard remembers the way Spock’s breath against his ear makes him shiver, like it always does. 

Spock’s face is as impassive and blank as ever, but McCoy can feel the desperate anger boiling beneath that mask as clear as day through the bond. It is an equal match for Jim’s, though his is plainly displayed in the expression of thin lipped hatred that seems so unnatural on his face. Uhura looks on helplessly, her hands clutched against her chest as if she fears what she might do if she let herself go. 

Whatever work camp or prison cell or hole in the ground the Zenobians plan to throw him into, Leonard knows that Spock and Jim will search to the ends of the universe to find it. They always come for him, like he always comes for them. It is the nature of the bond they all share that they can never truly be separated, not for long, and McCoy has utter faith in it. In _them_. 

He bows his head before the King and nods, accepting whatever fate he might lay upon his shoulders. Even a death sentence will not stop Jim Kirk from protecting his crew, but if it comes down to Leonard dying or losing the entire landing party, then Leonard will gladly accept the fall of the axe without a single protest. Leonard is just one man and the safety of the crew is paramount above all else, even his own life.

Or, at least, that’s what Leonard tells himself now, during the long, silent evenings alone with nothing but his thoughts and an empty Jefferies tube to keep him company. 

Fate, it would seem, has other plans than martyrdom for the woebegone CMO of the USS Enterprise however. He doesn’t like the cruel twist of the Zenobian King’s violet mouth as he stares down his nose at him, drawing out the excruciating seconds before McCoy learns whether he’s going to live or die at the whims of this man. 

“I sentence you thus,” The King all but murmurs, folding his seven fingered hands together in front of him. “You will know not touch or comfort. You will be bound to the Enterprise and her crew, walk amongst them but never seen. Never heard. You shall exist but to yourself, alone and isolated in the eternity of space. And you shall be forgotten, Doctor Leonard McCoy, by all who have ever known you. Your achievements will be attributed to others. The impact of your life gone in the blink of an eye. You will be forced to bear witness to the realization of the… _insignificance_ of your life, and you will learn just how little you impacted the world around you. You will be alone, Doctor McCoy, as I shall be, for the rest of time.”

Jim’s scream of rage and horror still echoes in Leonard’s ears even after days have passed since that horrible feast, and he absently traces the high arch of Spock’s cheekbone, watching the two men he loves more than anything sleeping in the bed they once shared. 

Or at least he _pretends_ to touch Spock. After repeated experiments of trial and error, McCoy has found that if he hovers just a fraction of an inch above their skin then it’s easier to imagine he really is touching them. Any closer and he will pass right through them and be confronted with the very real consequences of his now hellish existence. 

It’s over in an instant. Before Leonard can take his next breath, before Jim’s haunting scream finishes echoing in the room, the scene before him changes and reality bends and snaps, and an alternate world is reborn in which Doctor Leonard Horatio McCoy never existed. 

Jim’s expression drops into calm confusion, staring blankly at all the Zenobians standing around him. 

“What’s all this about?” he demands, wrenching his arm free of the guard that had been holding him back from rescuing his bond mate just moments before.

The King’s smile is neutral, sweeping his arm to gesture that the Enterprise away team be released. 

“A simple misunderstanding. It’s been cleared up, though. I thank you for the pleasure of your company but I have my son’s death rites to see to. Perhaps communicate to your Starfleet that they would be welcome to send another diplomatic envoy in a few of your standard months, once the required period of mourning has passed and negotiations with outsiders may resume.” His tone is so eerily even, so unaffected, that Leonard can hardly believe just moments before he had seemed fit to cut McCoy’s throat on the altar. 

He realizes now that he has also been freed from the tight grip of the guards and he stands in a rush, feeling weak as a kitten with relief. The words that the King had spoken still echo in his ears and the true meaning of them had yet to sink into his anxiety fogged mind. 

Jim is trying to delicately pose a counter offer to continue the negotiations now, since they were already here after all. He understands the need for privacy and mourning, but he’s obligated by protocol to at least try to complete the current negotiations before accepting the new terms.

“Jim, let’s just go, we really don’t wanna see what these people can do when they’re-“

McCoy never does finish that sentence. How can he when he reaches out to reassure his bond mate and finds his hand passing clear through him. Jim doesn’t so much as flutter an eyelash to show he’d felt anything, still staring straight ahead at the Zenobian King. A roaring noise like an ocean wave overwhelms Leonard’s senses and he holds his shaking hands out before him, studying them with silent despair. 

_You will not know touch or comfort. Unseen. Unheard._

“Jim?” he tries again, and again. Over and over, yelling his and Spock’s name with an increasing edge of panic to his voice. He grabs for them. Tries to slap them. Shove them. Screaming in their ears until his throat is raw and aching. 

Nothing. 

A numbness settles over him, body and soul, a numbness that he still hasn’t been able to shake off. When he stands with the rest of the crew, waiting to be beamed up to the Enterprise, wondering if he even _can_ , the Zenobian King has the gall to actually _wink_ at him. 

“If someone on your crew, anyone, somehow remembers you and speaks your name aloud then the curse will end. The terms of your sentence will be considered fulfilled and everything will revert to how it once was. But, well..” The King’s voice, whispering in his ear, goes so soft that McCoy has to strain to hear him. “I’m sure you can guess that it’s an impossibility for anyone to remember someone that does not exist.” 

And so that’s it. Leonard McCoy, MD, PhD, had never been born. His achievements, his life’s work, have been parceled out to any convenient person along the way and whatever impact he might have had on the world is utterly gone. 

The only thing he is capable of touching is the Enterprise itself, the metal hull serving as the egg shell confines of what makes up his existence now. He can’t touch the crew, or anything else inside the ship. His possessions are gone and his office filled by newly promoted, or at least to Leonard’s point of view, CMO Geoffrey M’Benga. He has no doubt that M’Benga will be an extremely competent CMO. Intelligent, dedicated, and even more of an expert on Vulcan physiology than Leonard. In McCoy’s absence, he will certainly be capable of looking after the crew. 

Maybe that’s the first nail in the coffin, Leonard ponders as Jim shuffles closer to Spock in his sleep, no doubt unwittingly tormenting the Vulcan with his perpetually ice cold toes as he always does. He has always considered himself, even his darkest moments, a necessary part of the Enterprise’s crew. A vital organ that cannot be removed, lest everything fall to chaos and ruin. He can’t even remember how many times he had pulled some bullshit out of thin air and managed to save Jim’s life, against all the odds. 

But he’s mistaken. M’Benga is more than qualified to fill his shoes and has a far nicer bedside manner to boot. Whereas McCoy had spent years cultivating his reputation of being a cranky curmudgeon, M’Benga is gentle and understanding. His patients don’t flee in terror after their appointments. 

Leonard has not left the quarters he once shared with Spock and Jim since that first day’s horrible revelations of how little his life’s work actually matters in the grand scheme of things. While Spock and Jim are on the bridge he remains, studying the Vulcan artifacts displayed on the walls and the couple holo-photos Jim keeps on his desk, silently begging for any sign that he had ever existed. Leonard is disappointed when he’s absent from every single one of them, now. Even the photo that had been taken on the day of their bonding ceremony is missing him, containing now just Spock and Jim, their hands entwined as the imposing Vulcan Matriarch T’Pau stood before them, reading the ancient words that will bind them together for all eternity. 

Watching his bond mates sleep, Leonard probes at the part of his mind where his connection to Jim and Spock once lived. It is empty and bereft of that comforting familiarity, as it had been since they left Zenobia V, and will be presumably for the rest of Leonard’s existence. 

He aches with the loss of it and in his moment of distraction his hand drops, sinking through Spock as if he isn’t there.

But he is there. Leonard is the one that isn’t real. 

He pulls away from them, folding his arms tight behind his back. Every fiber of his being longs to reach out for them again, to sweep back the comma of hair that has fallen over Jim’s forehead, to soothe the tension between Spock’s eyebrows. He misses them like a very vital part of himself has been hacked off and replaced with a black hole, ripping away at McCoy until nothing is left. He supposes it isn’t an entirely inaccurate comparison. The nature of his bond to Spock and Jim is supposed to be permanent and the Zenobian King had torn it out of him with a butcher knife, yet McCoy seems to be the only one suffering the consequences of the severed bond. 

And why shouldn’t he? Spock and Jim still have each other. It’s increasingly obvious to McCoy that he’s an unnecessary part in their relationship. An add on that the other two tolerated but never actually needed to find happiness. 

It’s been less than a week since the Zenobian King handed down his sentence and Leonard is already on the verge of begging for death. 

Not that anyone would even hear him if he did. 

“Fuck!” he screams, swinging a punch at the wall that never makes contact. Or rather, it does make contact, but he doesn’t feel it, not in the way he wants to at any rate. He stares at his knuckles, distantly noting the lack of blood or bruising. There’s nothing, though, like there always is. Not even a sensation of pain that would at least mean he’s still alive. 

Is he, though? Is any of this even real? Did Leonard McCoy ever even exist to begin with?

He leaves the room in an emotional flurry, not noticing the way Spock’s brow furrows in his sleep and a pale hand reaches out beyond Jim’s sleeping body, searching for something it doesn't find.

Leonard stares up at the metal of the Jefferies tube he’s made his home now, hands folded absently against his stomach. It’s one of the smaller ones, meant to pump heat through the ship he’s pretty sure. Not that it matters anyways because his body is incapable of feeling heat or chill anymore. Either way, it’s still large enough that McCoy can sit up comfortably if he wants to, but not one of the massive tunnels that the engineering crew use to move about insides of the ship. He doesn’t want to be bothered right now.

The long, empty nights are easier to pass when he’s alone, though the concept of night and day is pretty loose when you’re in outer space. Now it means the period of time in which Jim and Spock go to sleep, wrapped up in one another and oblivious to the specter that watches them. He hasn’t gone back to their quarters since that time he failed to injure the wall or himself. A small failure in the culmination of bigger failures that make up the life he once lived. 

“My name is Leonard McCoy. I’m the Chief Medical Officer of the USS Enterprise,” he says to the metal wall of the tube. Unsurprisingly it has nothing to say in response to that, regarding him with the same silence that literally everything and everyone else on this ship does.

He bares his teeth and reaches out on a frustrated whim, scraping his fingernails against the metal. He’s surprised when he’s left with four long, pale scratches, much like what one sees when scraping a chisel against stone. He can’t feel the contact of course but it’s something. More than he’s had all week. A tangible sign that he exists in the world, even if only to this brief extent. He hasn’t been able to make so much as a dent on anything else in this ship and he doesn’t dare to question the impossibility of the moment aloud, lest he find himself suddenly bereft of even this mild comfort.

So he scratches, and his scratches take the form of letters, then words. He writes, “My name is Leonard McCoy” over and over again until he runs out of room in front of him. He lets his arm fall to his side and stares at the collage he’d made, trying to stifle the swell of emotion that threatens to consume him. He won’t give that Zenobian bastard the satisfaction of making him cry, wherever he is in the universe. 

He rolls over and sits up, gazing at the wall beside him now. Absently, before he can stop himself or feel regret, he scratches more letters into the Jefferies tube. 

“My name is Leonard McCoy and I am bonded to S’chn T’gai Spock and James Tiberius Kirk. We have been bonded for three years. I love them.” 

He reads it out loud, then pauses, letting the full meaning of the words settle heavy in his belly. The Zenobian King, who Leonard has begun to affectionately refer to as ‘That Eggplant Bastard’, had said it would be impossible for anyone to remember him or his name in order to break whatever alien space bullshit had done this to him. In his angrier moments he ponders the infuriating nature of magic that can wipe him from existence but isn’t capable of bringing a single child back from the dead. 

He doesn’t know what prompts it, but suddenly he recalls something he overheard Spock saying to Jim once before and his expression softens, the ghost of a smile playing at his lips. 

He scratches it into the Jefferies tube as well, lest he should forget it, and turns to crawl out, desperately missing the voices of his bond mates. 

_We will find hope in the impossible._

If there’s anyone in the entire vastness of fucking space that can figure this out and fix it then it’s the two geniuses he has pledged his heart and soul to, he’s sure of it. He finds them on the bridge as he expects and sighs at the bittersweet familiarity of it. He’s done moping, he’s done isolating himself any more than this damn curse already has and he’s definitely through with avoiding Spock and Jim.

When Spock turns to look at the Ensign standing behind McCoy he allows himself to believe for just a single, heart stopping moment that he’s the one being stared at with such intensity. He remembers all the times he really had been the focus of Spock’s attention, the times before they had been bonded when he’d come up to the bridge to pick a fight about something silly, just to get Spock to look at him. 

How many years had he wasted silently pining away for the two closest friends he ever had, who for all their closeness felt light years apart from McCoy for so long? All those fights with Spock and all McCoy had to do was close the gap between them and kiss him like he’d wanted to do for so long. 

Jim is the one that brings them all together in the end and that’s somehow feels bizarrely right to Leonard, even now, even when the seemingly unbridgeable stretch of distance between them has returned. Jim reminds them of it constantly, whenever he feels Spock and Leonard are ganging up on him, that he’s the only one that could possibly get them to take the sticks out of their asses and do something about the tension between them. 

“You would then talk about the ridiculous illogic of that statement when, in fact, no pieces of flora were lodged inside orifices of any kind,” McCoy said to the unresponsive Vulcan, watching as he signs the PADD the Ensign had brought to him. “I heard you say it a thousand times and it never got any funnier, Spock, even if this idiot laughed at it every single time.” He gestures with his elbow to Jim seated in the Captain’s chair, one leg crossed neatly over the other as he surveys the blackness of space before him. The Enterprise has been experiencing a period of peace since leaving Zenobia V. No Klingon attacks, no misadventures on unexplored planets, no distress calls from nearby Starfleet bases. In any other circumstance Leonard would have very much enjoyed the lack of stress inducing imminent disasters and diplomatic horseshit. Now he finds himself almost missing the familiarity of it. 

“What I wouldn’t give to hear you say it again, you stubborn menace,” Leonard sighs softly, stepping up into his familiar spot next to Jim’s chair, just off to the side and a little bit behind, almost knocking his knee against the edge of it. How many times had he done this very thing? Taken the turbo lift up from med bay and strode into the bridge like he owns the place, taking this very spot while Spock sidles up on the other side? He never thought to keep count before. Maybe he should start. 

His heart stops when he sees a smile split Jim’s face, his whole body twisting in the chair to look up at the space McCoy currently occupies. He watches as the smile fades into something confused and distant, eyebrows knitting in consternation before he turns back to face forward, fingers twisting on his lap. 

What just happened? 

He swallows thickly, his earlier confidence shot all to hell with a simple smile and glance from Jim to remind him that he isn’t real, not in the way he desperately wants to be. 

McCoy trips over his feet in his desperation to get away from the bridge, slamming into the turbo lift just as the doors are closing on the Ensign he had followed up here. His vision blurs as he stumbles through endless hallways, finding the vent that led to his Jefferies tube and crawling inside until he reaches the scratched letters, his entire body shaking with adrenaline. 

“My name is Leonard McCoy,” he gasps, and the tinny voice in the back of his head is unhelpfully pointing out that he’s experiencing all the symptoms of a panic attack. “I am the Chief Medical Officer aboard the USS Enterprise. I.. I am bonded to S’chn T’gai Spock and James Tiberius Kirk. We have been bonded for three years and I love them. I love them so fucking much it hurts.”

He curls around himself and puts his head between his knees until he remembers how to breathe, feeling weak and shivery when the world finally stops spinning. Ignoring the wetness on his face, Leonard looks up, staring at the words until he feels satisfied that they’re imprinted on the back of his eyeballs. 

His pointer and thumb curl around his left ring finger, feeling for a wedding band that has never existed. McCoy had been the one that decided they didn’t need rings when they bonded. He’d declared them an outdated Earth tradition. He’d worn a wedding ring before, after all, and the woman who gave it to him ripped out his heart and stomped all over it, creating the bitter, defensive man he is today. 

Never before has Leonard felt such a profound sensation of loss for something he’d never had. It would be something tangible, something hard and undeniable that he can seek comfort from in moments like this. He stares at the writing on the wall again. This will have to do. 

He reaches out to the metal and starts scratching, his face flush and jaw clenched with desperate determination. No matter how much he claws at the tube his fingernails never get shorter and for that he can only be grateful, otherwise his nails would wear down long before he’s finished writing.

_My name is Leonard McCoy and I am loved by S’chn T’gai Spock. My name is Leonard McCoy and I am loved by James Tiberius Kirk. I chose them and they chose me in return._

Leonard can’t bring himself to say it out loud just yet, but he remembers. He remembers the way Jim had turned in his seat just like he had turned to look up at McCoy with such open affection and delight so many times before, a reflex born of repetition and Jim’s own desire to see Leonard right where he’s always meant to be. Jim hasn’t forgotten him, not yet, not even if everyone else has. Leonard had cracked himself open and shared his very soul with Jim, and with Spock, and that isn’t something that just disappears, not even with all the bullshit space magic in the universe. 

“I will be remembered,” he snarls into the empty space around him, silent but for the gentle creaking of the Enterprise. He carves it into the metal of the Jefferies tube for good measure, repeating it with every stroke of his nail down the metal. It’s bigger than all the other things he’s carved, dominating the space with his will to exist. 

“I will be remembered. You hear that, you fucking eggplant bastard? I won’t go down without a fight and if I have to tear this entire star ship apart with my bare hands I will be remembered.” 

He screams it, as if his voice could carry all the way back to Zenobia V. The absence of an echo doesn’t bother him anymore, he’s long adjusted to the mechanics of his lack of presence aboard this ship. 

It makes him feel better at any rate and he sinks against the opposite wall of the Jefferies tube, staring at the words he had carved into the metal. 

“I will be remembered,” he repeats, clenching his hands into fists against his sides. He’d have to wait until Alpha shift tomorrow, though. Spock and Jim will be going to bed soon. 

Leonard joins them for the first time in what feels like an eternity, watching the way they trade sleepy kisses, both human and Vulcan, while they undress and settle in. 

“You forgot to brush your teeth, you goddamn brat,” he whispers affectionately, daring to sit on the bed beside them as they got comfortable. This time he doesn’t miss the way Spock’s arm curls over Jim and beyond to where McCoy usually sleeps pressed up against Jim, feeling for a body that isn’t there anymore. 

Like Jim’s reaction on the bridge, born of reflex and well worn habit that is suddenly out of place in a McCoy-less existence. He doesn’t miss either the way Spock’s face pinches just slightly in annoyance, no doubt chiding himself inwardly for his own illogical behavior. To most, Spock’s face is a consistent mask of emotionless neutrality, but Jim and McCoy have learned to notice every micro expression on his face, every twitch of an eyebrow, every flare of his nostrils. Spock’s face is just as much as an open book to his soul as anyone else on the Enterprise, if only you knew how to read it. 

“I never really appreciated how special that was until just now,” he says out loud, tracing the air just above the curve of Spock’s pointed ear. “I took you both for granted and now look where it’s gotten me.”

Jim feels Spock’s momentary frustration through their bond and Leonard watches as he props himself up on an elbow, reaching up to follow the trail McCoy’s invisible fingers had just taken along the pointed arch of Spock’s ear. 

“What’s bothering you, Spock? You’ve been distracted all day,” Jim asks quietly, and McCoy reflects inwardly for a moment on how perceptive he always is, even if the bond does help a lot. The flare of _love, want, need_ in his chest is intense and painful and now, more than ever, he wishes he could curl around his bond mates and kiss away their pain. 

“Do you feel like there’s something missing, Jim?” Spock ventures finally, after Jim has started to squirm at the uncomfortable length of the silence between them. McCoy’s breath sticks in his throat and he draws his hand away as if he’s been stung, the unbalanced, quivery sensation of panic back in full force.

He’s not prepared for Jim to smile faintly at Spock, or for the way Spock draws Jim closer until his lips are pressing into the blond mess of his hair. 

“You’ve been feeling it, too, then.” It’s a statement of fact, not a question this time, and Leonard allows himself the breath he had been holding, heat prickling at his eyes. 

They miss him. They don’t know what they are missing or why or how but they miss him. 

“Suck on that, you purple son of a bitch,” he whispers, brushing his fingertips over Jim’s bare shoulder almost reverently. Spock is kissing Jim now and Jim is kissing him back almost desperately and Leonard watches as they undress each other with such unhurried tenderness it makes him ache all over with loss. 

He should leave, he knows he should, but he can’t bring himself to turn away from the intimate moment, feeling somehow included despite the stark reality of his inexistence. He watches Spock’s face as Jim sinks down onto him and pivots his hips in a way that only Jim knew how, a move that incapacitates Leonard just as much as it renders Spock speechless. Leonard had tried it before, both with Jim and with Spock, and had never quite gotten it right. He had always assumed that he’d have an entire lifetime to perfect it. 

“I wasn’t truly afraid when that asshole had me on my knees at the altar,” he confesses to them as they rock together, Jim’s back curving over Spock as they share air more than kiss, foreheads touching in a moment of gut wrenching beauty. The body Leonard has now doesn’t get aroused, is incapable of responding physically to the tender lovemaking he’s watching, but that doesn’t mean he feels nothing. 

“I knew that whatever he did to me, whatever sentence he put forth, that you two would save me. That you’d go to the edges of forever and back if that’s what it took to find me. I lost that faith in you when the reality of my imprisonment hit me, and I hope you forgive me for-“

“Bones!”

The word exploded out of Jim’s mouth so suddenly that whatever Leonard had been thinking is completely obliterated from any plane of existence, replaced with a single echoing word on loop. 

Spock goes completely still for a moment and stares up at Jim with such a clear look of fond bewilderment on his face that Leonard’s heart lurches up to pound in his mouth. Jim, for his part, appears equally confused, blinking down at Spock with Spock’s cock still buried deep inside him. 

“What exactly is it about skeletons that gives you such pleasure?” Spock asks dryly, and if Leonard weren’t so distraught he might have chuckled at the amusement in his voice. Jim blinks and shrugs a single, flushed shoulder, eyebrows still pinched together like he’s desperately trying to remember something. 

“I dunno why I said that. It sorta just.. burst out of me before I could stop it. Strange, huh?” Jim laughs, and McCoy’s heart plummets down to the pit of his belly. He clearly isn’t visible again and, despite the personal nature of the title Jim always uses for him instead of Leonard, it also doesn’t count as saying his name. 

“But you do remember me,” McCoy says stubbornly, watching as the pair of them got back to business with an impatient hitch of Spock’s hips. He stands up abruptly, breath coming in gasps and a bright red flush rising in his cheeks.

“You remember me, you bastards. Remember me! Remember me!” He screams his frustration and despair at them, angry tears streaming down his face. He wants to throw things and break every item in this room, but he can’t, so he does what McCoys do best: he flees the room and the loving scene contained inside, an invisible streak of fury down the halls of the Enterprise. 

He finds himself in the Jefferies tube he’s come to think of as ‘home’, surrounded with and grounded by the words he’s scratched there. 

“My name is Leonard McCoy and I am loved by S’chn T’gai Spock. My name is Leonard McCoy and I am loved by James Tiberius Kirk. I chose them and they chose me in return,” he says out loud this time, emboldened by hearing them, and adds, “I will be remembered.” 

He curls up on his side in the tube and stares at the words, refusing to even blink lest he lose sight of them for even an instant and forget his nerve. 

Leonard stays there the rest of the night, whispering to himself, “I will be remembered. I _will_ be remembered.”

Leonard is visiting sickbay for the first time since that whole distraught father eggplant ruining his life for being unable to prevent the death of his eggplant offspring thing had come to pass. It’s not that he wants to hate the Zenobian King, though the temptation is certainly quite present. He had been grieving a crippling loss and McCoy grants him the need to take it out on someone convenient, but for fucks sake it’s not like it had been his fault. Even Doctor Leonard McCoy can’t just resurrect someone, or prevent the death of a patient he hadn’t known was ill, even if he had been familiar with the biology of the Zenobian Prince.

He’s a doctor, damn it, not a psychic, and certainly not a God, no matter how many times Jim insists that his ass is so fine it could only have been crafted by the almighty himself. 

“Flattery will get you everywhere, Jim,” he says out loud from his perch on the edge of a bio bed, watching Christine bustle around the room. His old man ass is certainly anything but godlike but McCoy would be lying if he didn’t admit to enjoying the attention Jim, and even Spock, gave to stroking his ego. He’s still only maybe 65% sure that Spock stares at his trim waist and long legs just because he knows Leonard enjoys catching him looking. 

“When there’s no evidence to support the hypothesis then perhaps the fault lies with the hypothesis itself,” he tells Christine in a spot-on impression of Spock’s gentle mocking tone, or at least spot on in _his_ opinion. She of course says nothing to this whatsoever and continues her meticulous sanitizing of the med bay, blond hair perfectly coifed as usual despite the long hours she always works.

He misses her stories and her bubbling laughter, the way her eyes crease at the corners when she’s trying not to smile.

“Did I ever tell you how much your friendship has meant to me over these years?” he murmurs, shame filling his belly as his eyes track her movements. When’s the last time he ever told _any_ of the friends he had made on this space boat that he appreciates them? He yearns to reach out to her, to hug her, to tell her how much he cares for her even if he’s never said it before. 

She turns and looks straight through him to the office that had once been his, a box of vaccinations in her hands. 

“Doctor Mc-“

Christine pauses, nose wrinkling slightly in confusion before she shakes her head, rotating back to the cabinet she had been organizing. McCoy regards her with more warmth than he believed himself capable of in his current situation. 

“You remember me, too, even if you don’t know it yet,” he huffs, unable to believe the truth of the matter even when it’s staring him plain in the face. 

“We will find hope in the impossible.” Leonard isn’t sure if he’s saying it to Christine or to himself, but it’s motivation enough to hop down off the bio bed and cross the room to stand at her side. 

“I’ll come back, Christine, I promise. I still owe you twenty credits from that time you bet that you could get more members of the crew to come for their quarterly checkups than I could. More flies with honey than vinegar, you said, and I was dumb enough to take you up on the challenge. But a McCoy always pays what he owes and not even the almighty eggplant patriarch himself can stop me.” His voice is firm, and steadier than he’s felt in weeks. Months? He’s lost all track of time in this hellish existence, each day blurring into the next in a stream of sleepless nights inside the Jefferies tube. 

McCoy has recently taken to wandering the ship, visiting the friends he never quite appreciated while he had them, stubbornly avoiding the bond mates he doesn’t deserve. 

“I’ll just have to come back and make it up to you all,” he announces to the med bay and spins on his heel, exiting into the hallway with a few quick steps. It’s second nature to weave through the crew members passing by, even with his eyes glued to the floor. Just because he can pass right through them doesn’t mean he wants to. He didn’t really need the reminder of his intangible existence, not now or ever. 

When he rounds the corner and passes the entrance to the transporter room he is greeted by the sight of complete and utter pandemonium. Bright crimson blood is splashed across the transporter itself and he sees Spock curled over a prone form, streaks of red spattered all over his face and clothes. McCoy goes so cold so quickly it’s as if he’s been thrust into the vacuum of space. When he crosses the room his worst fears are confirmed in the form of Jim’s pale body sprawled across the floor, the crater that had once been his chest cavity bleeding sluggishly against Spock’s clamped fingers. It’s a beast of a wound and Leonard found himself reflexively throwing himself at it, to add the pressure of his own hands to stem the bleeding, and predictably passes right through his body.

“No,” he begs the room around him, gesturing wildly at anyone to do _anything_ but stand there and stare in open mouthed horror. “No, no, no, no, no.” 

Leonard is sobbing now, slamming his hands down and through Jim’s dying body over and over, begging anyone who might be listening to let him save Jim. 

And he gets it, now. The Zenobian King’s rage and despair at his own helplessness, that he could do nothing but watch his son die in front of him, unable to save him, unable to take away his pain. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, please. Please make it stop, I’ll do anything,” he whispers, pressing his face into his knees as Chapel and M’Benga burst into the room. Leonard hadn’t even known there was going to be an away mission today. He’s been too busy feeling sorry for himself and avoiding Spock and Jim like they’re contagious. 

He senses more than he sees Jim’s body being taken away. Through the dull thudding of despair in his ears he hears Spock’s hurried footsteps as he chases after them, unable to keep up the pretense of neutral indifference when it comes to the prospect of losing Jim. 

No one answers his pleas and he’s left alone with the congealing puddle of Jim’s blood, the smell of iron heavy in the air. The maintenance team will come by the clean it up soon. Leonard doesn’t care. He feels numb, number than all these weeks of isolation have left him feeling, and more alone than ever before. 

He doesn’t know how long he lies there, curled up on his side with his eyes glued to the sight of Jim’s blood virtually _everywhere_. The maintenance crew does their job and then he’s left with nothing but the tang of lemon antiseptic and the taste of his own failure, acrid in his mouth. 

Finally he finds the strength to push himself up to his feet and staggers out of the transporter room, leaning heavily on the sturdy walls of the Enterprise for support as he makes his way towards med bay. He needs to see for himself. He needs to see firsthand the damage and violence wrought by his carelessness on Zenobia V. If he hadn’t gotten involved or, better yet, had managed to save the boy, then none of this would have happened. Jim would still be alive and smiling that secret little smile he always wears when he’s up to something.

McCoy enters med bay with the expectation that he will be faced with the grieving silence of Spock, seated beside Jim’s broken body. And he isn’t entirely wrong, for Spock is indeed sitting next to a bio bed, but there’s a thick swath of bandages wrapped around Jim’s chest, which is rising and falling gently with the steady cadence of his breathing. The monitor above the bed displays Jim’s vital signs and while his blood pressure is lower than Leonard likes, no doubt from the massive blood loss and trauma, everything else is perfectly normal. 

Once more he is reminded that Geoffrey M’Benga is every inch the qualified Doctor that McCoy is and for once that knowledge is a deep, aching relief that unfurls in the pit of Leonard’s belly. If he had been anything but then Jim wouldn’t still be alive right now and he would indeed have walked in on the sight of Spock’s suffering. 

He goes to Spock, desperate to offer him any kind of comfort, and is once again left with his own misery when his hand passes right through the Vulcan. So he just stands there instead at parade rest, staring down at the quiet little flutter of Jim’s breathing, and allows himself to be soothed by it. 

“I’m sorry I failed you. Both of you,” he murmurs, clenching at his wrist behind his back until it should ache, but he knows it won’t. It never does anymore. 

“Maybe you’re all better off without me,” he admits, reaching up to trace the point of Spock’s ear with two fingers, the ghost of a Vulcan kiss. It had become a habit in the months leading up to the mission to Zenobia V. Leonard always finds it oddly comforting despite Spock’s initial embarrassment at such a public act of intimacy. He’d always teased Spock that he could do it the human way next time if he really wants to something to turn green about and Spock would give him that blank, long suffering stare he always wears when Jim or Leonard are being especially vexing and illogical. 

McCoy would sell his soul to the devil to see that look directed his way just one more time. 

He leans down to brush a kiss across Spock’s ear, wishing he could feel the cool skin against his lips again. Turning to Jim, he curls over him just close enough to hear the soft little sigh that escapes him, deeply asleep with all the painkillers he’s surely got pumping through his system. 

“I love you two. I wish I’d said that more. Wish I’d said a lot of things,” Leonard confesses, dropping a phantom kiss to Jim’s temple. He turns his back and strides out of med bay and doesn’t see Spock raising his fingers to touch the ear McCoy had just kissed, slanted brows furrowed. 

Leonard returns to the Jefferies tube and scratches out a lifetime of things left unspoken, and feelings unshared. He writes and writes until he runs out of tube and then he writes some more, filling in the spaces between sentences with even more words. He loses track of time between one confession and the next, from apologies to patients that he terrorized for minor injuries and to the bridge crew for never making them aware of the depth of his respect and admiration for their strength and loyalty. He tells the walls of the Jefferies tube all the things he’s never dared to say to Spock and Jim, the words he’s been too afraid to speak through all the years of their lives they have shared. 

Sometimes he ventures out to check on them, to soothe the ache of anxiety that something has happened to take them all away while he’s been absent. There are other away missions, other injuries, other close calls. McCoy suffers them all in pained silence before he makes his inevitable return to the Jefferies tube to scratch out more confessions and words of love and regret. 

Weeks turn into months and the crew of the Enterprise gets no closer to saying his name and releasing him from his life sentence. He watches as Spock goads anyone close enough to argue with him in a way that only a Vulcan can: through dismissive, condescending remarks. However, where McCoy would have leapt at the opportunity for a good verbal sparring, an act that Jim insists on calling “their weird foreplay”, everyone else just lapses into irritated silence and turns away, leaving Spock with a confused, almost longing expression on his face. 

Jim tries to fill the McCoy shaped void of his best friend with anyone who will tolerate his antics, spending hours drinking with Scotty and long evenings in their quarters playing increasingly strained, silent chess games with Spock. Jim remarks that their lives feel devoid somehow, like something vital is missing that he can’t quite place. 

Leonard returns to the Jefferies tube and scratches an apology for all the dates he has missed, for all the chess games he worked through, and the nights he spent poring over medical journals when he could have been wrapped up between them in their bed. 

The melancholic solitude of his life has become routine. So routine in fact that he forgets that the Enterprise regularly ventures into uncharted regions of space, and that they aren’t always the first ones to arrive.

The Klingon warbird had eventually limped its way into hyperspace beyond their reach but not before dealing a hell of a lot of damage to the Enterprise in return. McCoy wanders the halls, watching as crew members run to put out fires and assess the damage done to the ship. He wonders, not for the first time, whether the total destruction of the Enterprise might in fact free him from this unbearable existence, but he’s also bound to her crew and he wouldn’t wish death upon a single one of them, not even for his own sake.

He hears Jim barking out orders over the intercom system and relaxes, knowing that he and Spock at least must be safe, or relatively unharmed at any rate. He follows the voice until he reaches the bridge, eyes wide as Spock rattles off a damage report while Sulu navigates the ship into hyperspace and towards a nearby Starfleet base where she can be properly repaired and the Klingon incursion reported in full to the Admiralty. 

Leonard sits on the console between Sulu and Chekov, watching the pair of them work seamlessly to guide the limping starship to safety. 

“Did I ever tell you how amazing you two are to me? ‘Cause you are, y’know. Amazing. The best helmsman and navigator in Starfleet, and you want to know how I know? ‘Cause I overheard Jim arguing with the Captain of the Farragut once because the guy wanted to steal both of you away. Though he could somehow blackmail or bribe Jim into giving you up. Joke’s on him because I’m pretty sure you have to be capable of feeling embarrassment to be blackmailed and James Tiberius Kirk is as shameless as they come,” he says to the pair of them, whispering like it was a treasured secret. Neither of them look up at him because of course they don’t, and he heaves himself off the console, his breath escaping in a steady stream. He notices the bleeding gash on Chekov’s forehead and grimaces, rolling his eyes northward before shaking his head.

“Report to sick bay at once, Ensign Chekov, that’s an order,” he grouses, the once familiar words foreign on his tongue. 

“Yes, doctor,” Chekov replies automatically, then pauses, clearly nonplussed by what he’d just said. He looks around and sees only Sulu staring him, as confused as he is. 

“What was that, Pavel?” Sulu asks, then notices the cut on Chekov’s forehead. “Hey, you should go get that checked out. You could have a concussion and then I’ll get yelled at for not making you go sooner.”

Chekov blinks at him, nose wrinkling faintly as he concentrates on processing what Sulu just said. 

“Since when does Doctor M’Benga yell at anyone for someone else’s injury?” he stammers, reaching up to touch the cut on his forehead with a wince. McCoy suddenly wants to know the answer to that question too because he’s never seen M’Benga so much as raise his voice to anyone, not even McCoy at his most cantankerous. He’s still reeling from the implications of Chekov’s little “Yes, doctor”, his brain foggy with desperation and hope. 

Sulu purses his lips, turning back to his controls with an absentminded hum. 

“He doesn’t, no.. No you’re right. I must be thinking of someone else,” he sighs finally, waving his hand in Chekov’s direction. “Now shoo, before you pass out or something and Mr. Spock has to carry you like a child to med bay.” 

The threat to his dignity is what gets Pavel moving in the end and McCoy barely has time to move aside before he’s sweeping by, embarrassment burning high on his cheeks, and McCoy is left with more questions than answers. 

He passes the rest of the journey to the space station in silent contemplation standing beside Jim, arms folded behind his back and eyes forward to stare at the emptiness of space, as if it holds all the answers to his questions. He barely hears Scotty come up to the bridge, or the tense words he exchanges with Jim that draw him out of the Captain’s chair and have him gesturing at Spock to follow. 

Lacking any better ideas, Leonard sits down heavily in Jim’s vacated seat, folding his arms and legs as he studies the sky, sensing more than feeling the shudder of the Enterprise being drawn into space dock.

He loses track of time, trying to find shapes in the glowing stars as the crew bustles around him, preparing to leave the ship so the repair crews could assess the damage without interference. He’s so deep in thought he almost misses it, the light cadence of Uhura’s voice beside him. She’s speaking to someone and McCoy has gotten so painfully used to being ignored that he doesn’t realize for several long seconds that the someone she’s speaking to… is him.

“Doctor McCoy, are you coming? They’re going to be looking for you down in med bay to help transport the injured off the ship,” she’s saying, and her dark brown eyes are fixed on him, though they quickly fill with confusion when he abruptly stands and invades her personal space, hardly daring to believe, to hope.

“I’ve finally gone mad,” he whispers, raising his hand towards her face but not yet touching, knowing that if he phases right through her like he surely will he might not come back from the crash this time. “I’ve snapped and I’m hallucinating. I’ve well and truly lost my mind.”

Uhura regards his raised hand with a moderate degree of wary concern, gaze flicking back and forth between it and his face. 

“Leonard, is everything alright?” Her voice is filled with worry, worry for _him_. She never uses his first name, so clearly it means he really has lost all his marbles. He closes the space between them anyways and almost screams when his palm rests against warm, very solid flesh. 

“This is real, then. I’m really back.” Uhura has only a brief moment to digest that very bizarre statement before he’s wrapping her up in his arms and spinning her around, whooping with laughter that feels hoarse and unnatural after so many months of silence. 

“I don’t understand, you never left!” Uhura protests, though she accepts this explosive and uncharacteristic display from Leonard. The doors of the turbo lift whoosh open and McCoy turns to look, seeing Jim and Spock standing there, out of breath and flush as if they had run from one end of the ship to the other in search of their bond mate. 

All the relief rushes out of Leonard in an instant and the agony of their months apart fills the void between them, threatening to choke him with the weight of it all. That is until a familiar, honey sweet warmth starts to spread across his mind, directing numb fingers to release Nyota and stumbling feet to take the few steps between his body and those of his bond mates. 

The bond he has been so bereft of is back. It’s back and he can really _feel_ Spock gathering him against his chest, fingers at his psi points in an instant. He can sense Jim at his side, peering in through the shared bond at Leonard’s soul laid bare. 

“Show me,” Spock pleads and it’s all McCoy can do to nod his assent, closing his eyes at the blissful joy of being held for the first time in what feels like a lifetime. 

And he shows them all of it. He shows them the Zenobian King looming above him, sentencing him to an eternity of isolation and despair. He shows them his anger, his loneliness, his moments of courage and strength that get lost to the reality of the hell he’s now living. He shows them the Jefferies tube and he feels the warmth and sadness radiating out from both of his bond mates now as they too show him the Jefferies tube. 

He watches as Scotty leads them to the tube, the opening cracked and exposed during the Klingon attack. One of the engineering ensigns had crawled inside to check for any serious damage and immediately rolled back out again with a terrorized expression at the wall of text that looks like it had been clawed into the metal by sheer force of will alone. 

_Well, she isn’t wrong,_ McCoy thinks with a faint sense of amusement, only to be quieted by the soft, exasperated affection the comment elicits in Spock. After being deprived of the bond so long, Leonard drinks it all up like a man dying of thirst, his hands clutching tighter at Spock’s uniform. 

Spock shows McCoy the memory of Spock and Jim wedging themselves into the tube to see the strange carvings for themselves. Spock traces the letters with sensitive fingertips and feels the lingering pain and sorrow that had put them there and finally, finally, after giving up all hope that anyone would ever say his name out loud again, Spock spoke the words that end McCoy’s prison sentence. 

“My name is Leonard McCoy and I am bonded to S’chn T’gai Spock and James Tiberius Kirk. We have been bonded for three years. I love them,” he reads aloud, and Leonard mouths them silently against Spock’s throat, for the words are imprinted on his very soul at this point. 

And then Spock and Jim are left to stare at each other with matching looks of bewilderment, for they suddenly found themselves without an explanation as to why their bond mate would have been down there in that Jefferies tube, scratching confessions and affirmations into the metal. When Spock reviews his memories of the past several months he finds them disturbingly muddled, and while the bond cannot lie it seems to Spock as if the link to McCoy’s consciousness had been cut off from them in a way that no psi null species could ever accomplish. 

“You’re here. You’re really here. You remembered me,” McCoy whispers reverently, and he knows right now if either Spock or Jim release their grip on him he will crumble to the floor in an instant. He can hear the desperation in his own voice and feel the roar of blood pounding through his veins. Spock’s mouth moves as he speaks but McCoy can’t understand him anymore. The world greys out and his knees give way beneath him, but Spock is there to sweep him off his feet before his body touches the floor, cradling him to his chest with his arms beneath Leonard’s knees and shoulders. 

“Is he gonna be okay, Spock?” Jim frets, taking in the flushed, almost feverish pallor of the doctor’s face. Spock’s eyebrows twitch before he bows his head in a nod, expression carefully blank as he studies his bond mate’s sleeping form. 

“He is merely overwhelmed. He requires rest,” Spock murmurs, reaching out through the bond to comfort Jim. He watches him relax and then turns, still bearing his fragile cargo. 

“I will see to procuring us appropriate quarters for the duration of our stay if you would pick up something for Leonard to eat when he awakens. I am positive he has not slept nor eaten during…” Spock flounders for a moment, not exactly sure as to what he should call the period of time Leonard had spent in isolated torture. 

“During the prior months,” he finishes, tightening his grip imperceptibly around their bond mate. Jim smiles at him but it’s a strained smile and it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Spock knows Jim well enough that he’s sure the Captain blames himself for what happened to Leonard just as much as Leonard too will blame his own shortcomings for the situation that is well and truly no one’s fault but the Zenobian King’s. Even the blame laid at the alien’s feet is questionable at best, for they were the actions of a grieving father, though that did not excuse the cruelty of the punishment he had laid upon McCoy’s shoulders for his inability to bring back the dead. Leonard is a gifted doctor and arguably Starfleet’s best and brightest, but even he has his limits, imposed not by lack of skill or education, but by the black and white laws of nature and mortality. 

“We will make it up to him,” Spock reassures Jim when he doesn’t snap out of the quagmire of guilt he has sunk himself into, reaching out again through the bond to comfort and soothe. Even then, Jim doesn’t seem convinced, and Spock hardens his gaze, squaring off his jaw as he considers his bond mate. 

“We _will_ make it up to him, Jim. Vulcans do not lie,” he repeats, and this time his words seem to land, straightening out the sullen curve of Jim’s spine until he’s standing at parade rest, arms folded behind him and shoulders back. 

“We will make it up to him,” Jim echoes, turning to face the turbo lift doors as they open and following Spock towards the docking port that the rest of the crew is flooding. “I’ll see to it that Scotty is put in charge of all repairs to the ship and that any requests should be forwarded to him. I never understood why Starfleet doesn’t just do that anyways. He’s my Chief Engineer for a reason.” 

Spock nods his agreement and steps off the Enterprise, resolutely ignoring any of the questioning glances that are aimed their way at the prone form of Doctor McCoy in Spock’s arms. He sees Lieutenant Uhura and tries to convey his gratitude for her ability to sense the magnitude of the private moment between them and the Doctor on the bridge, though not exactly understanding the circumstances, and leaving them to their reunion. She offers him a small smile and he considers her assured, adding her to the mental list he is compiling of the friends Leonard will want to see once he has recovered. 

He pauses when Jim stops walking, studying his bond mate’s face as a complicated mixture of emotions scream at him through the bond. Guilt, relief, sadness, and shame, all at war with one another in Jim’s mind. 

“We will though, right? We’ll make it up to him?” he asks, and this time Spock hears the real question that is rattling around in Jim’s heart. _Will he ever forgive us?_

Spock can’t reach out to Jim, not without potentially disturbing the Doctor, but he does lean forward to press their foreheads together in an uncharacteristic display of public intimacy. 

“Even if it takes an eternity, Jim, we will earn his forgiveness,” Spock assures, offering him just the hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth, expression soft with affection. No doubt Leonard is the one that feels he doesn’t deserve _their_ forgiveness, if his scratchings in the Jefferies tube were anything to go by. Spock will be swift in, as Jim would say, nipping that erroneous misconception right in the bud. 

For now, what Leonard needs is sleep in an actual bed.

“Go, do what you must and then hurry back. I will send you the location of our temporary quarters,” Spock urges and he’s relieved when Jim nods his agreement, putting some space between them once more. Despite how much he wants to go with Spock right now and curl around their bond mate until Jim felt he has sufficiently shielded him from all the evils of the world, he’s still the Captain. He has a job to do before he can give into his baser urges to mother hen Bones into submission. 

“Take care of him, Spock,” Jim says unnecessarily, for he’s certain beyond reproach that their bond mate is in the most capable hands. Spock nods and turns away, the heels of his boots clicking softly on the metal walkway. 

“You are Doctor Leonard McCoy,” Spock murmurs to the sleeping human, setting him down but briefly on a park bench only so he can shift him onto his back, his arms crooked around Leonard’s knees. A slightly more dignified manner of travel for the Doctor, or at least Spock hopes so. He doesn’t really have much choice with the unconscious state of his cargo.

“You are bonded to S’chn T’gai Spock and James Tiberius Kirk. We have been bonded for almost four standard years. You are loved and you will always be remembered, no matter how far away you go.” It might be his imagination, but he swears he feels Leonard smile against his neck. 

He definitely doesn’t hallucinate the arms tightening around his shoulders, or the lips that press themselves to the sensitive point of his ear. 

“My name is Doctor Leonard McCoy. I will be remembered,” McCoy purrs softly, and Spock can feel the weight of his love through their bond. Spock will ensure that he never does anything to betray the absolute faith Leonard has placed in him and Jim ever again.

“You will be remembered,” he agrees, tightening his grip on McCoy’s knees. If Spock has to carve his name on his heart then so be it; Leonard McCoy will never be forgotten by his bond mates ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is an epilogue that picks up a couple months after the end of the story.


	2. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His name is Doctor Leonard McCoy. He is bonded to S’chn T’gai Spock and James Tiberius Kirk. Today is the four year anniversary of that bond and his bond mates have a surprise for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I'm a sucker for happy endings.

Today is important for a number of reasons. First, it marks exactly two months since McCoy had been released from his isolated torment. Second, it’s the end of the week and that means real food for dinner, not the replicated crap they’re stuck with normally.

And finally, it’s the day that McCoy had spoken his vows and bonded with Spock and Jim exactly four standard years ago. He frowns quietly with the realization, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he waves the dermal regenerator over a deep cut on Ensign Peters' forearm. Scotty brought her in with his hand clamped over the bleeding gash, full of apologies that McCoy waves away. Now he’d be lying if he said he completely abandoned his cantankerous ways upon his return to this plane of reality, but something had definitely changed.

Of course, the Doctor is still loud and brash, wearing his heart on his sleeve and berating crew members for the injuries wrought by their own carelessness, but there’s something softer about him. His prickly personality has gentled and his hands are not so rough in the care of his patients, even the ones that deserve it for their own stupidity. 

A large majority of the crew know the reason for this sudden shift in personality. Photos of McCoy’s writings on the wall had circulated through them, more than one person startled to realize that the rude, abrupt Doctor they only saw a couple times a year actually knew their name. The realization that the curmudgeonly porcupine serving as the CMO of the USS Enterprise is a big softie at heart has done little to abate their fears of what he can do when wielding a hypo spray and a scowl, but it helps. 

A few even come to visit Doctor McCoy in the early days back aboard the newly repaired star ship, bearing tearful apologies and hugs. He puts an immediately and firm end to that nonsense, and he’s relieved when it doesn’t continue after the first couple ensigns are physically thrown out of med bay.

His recovery has been slow, but he’s here now and that’s all that matters. So what if, after his abrupt return to reality, he has been absolutely terrified of being touched for fear that it will prove he hasn’t truly been freed. So what if he _maybe_ snaps at his bond mates far more than is necessary when they reach out to him or express their concern for his well being. 

So what if, two months later, Leonard is still afraid that they’ll realize one day that they don’t actually need him around. 

He can’t hide anything from them, not with the bond back in place, and he knows it pains Jim to feel the anxiety rolling off Leonard in constant waves when they’re together. It bothers Spock, too, though the Vulcan remains as stoic as ever, refusing to acknowledge how McCoy’s lack of trust in his bond mates upsets him. 

He knows they watch him flinch away from their outstretched hands and sense the panic that almost visibly emanates from his skin when someone actually lands a hand on his body. 

Ensign Peters leaves the med bay with a thank you and a smile and McCoy withdraws to the safety of his office, breathing a sigh of relief when the door finally closes. When he was alone and isolated from the world, all he wanted was to be seen and felt by anyone. Now that he’s visible again the thing he desires most is to just be left the hell alone. 

Reality is overwhelming in all its intensity and the rational side of McCoy knows that no one begrudges him his need for time and personal space, but the irrational side waits for the other shoe to drop.

“You are a Doctor, for fucks sake, McCoy, get it together,” he snarls to himself, stalking over to his desk and sinking down heavily into his chair. He pours himself a drink and tries to smother the memory of Jim’s sadness and loneliness when he had reached out to Leonard, only to be immediately rebuffed. He hasn’t shared their bed since before the incident on Zenobia V and he knows it’s killing Jim not to push him for more than he’s been willing to give thus far.

Yesterday had been the eighth video appointment with Leonard’s Starfleet appointed shrink. She’s been teaching him methods of overcoming his haphephobia. She doesn’t sugar coat it or beat around the bush that McCoy’s mind is still struggling to process the deeply traumatic event he had experienced. He begrudgingly admits that he likes her for her bluntness. She doesn’t tell Leonard he’s going to miraculously wake up all better one morning, or that the Power of Love will magic away his phobias and fears. 

She suggests inviting his bond mates to one of their sessions and he’s yet to take her up on the offer, but today is a special day and damned if McCoy is gonna be the one to fuck it all up. 

He downs the whiskey in a fiery gulp and stands up, mustering his courage to walk across his office and exit the room to med bay. Christine is standing there, patient as ever, and offers him a smile when she sees him heading for the door. 

“Do try to have fun, Doctor McCoy, if your cranky mood will allow it,” she says with the light, familiar tone of a well worn exchange. Leonard pauses, his mouth quirking up at the corner despite himself, and turns back to look at her, eyebrow raised and arms folded behind his back. 

“Only if you promise not to let M’Benga mutiny and take over my med bay before I return,” he teases back, eyes glittering with mirth. She waves a dismissive hand at him and returns to the file she had been perusing, no doubt some unfortunate ensign that has attempted to skip their check up. 

Feeling more confident now, McCoy follows the path from the med bay to the quarters he shares with Jim and Spock. It starts to waver, however, when the doors hiss open and he sees his bond mates are waiting for him, twin looks of suspicious innocence plastered on their faces. Well, Jim looks innocent anyways, Spock's expression is blandly neutral as it always is.

“What have you done?” he asks warily, stepping inside the room and looking around. Nothing seems amiss just yet. The three desks against the far wall seem undisturbed, as do Spock’s Vulcan wall ornaments. Spock’s meditation mat is right where he left it last night, though Leonard notes with some building despair that the pillow and blankets he’s been using to sleep on the couch are missing. Do Jim and Spock expect him to return to their bed finally? Leonard has made determined attempts on numerous occasions to join them but the space is just too crowded, leaving far too many opportunities for them to accidentally touch him during the night. 

He sees the aborted movement Jim makes to reach out to him before he remembers himself and folds his arms behind his back, as if to prevent himself from aiming any further moves towards McCoy. Strangely comforted by this, Leonard lets himself be coaxed a little closer to them, eyes darting nervously around the room. 

“We have a gift for you, Leonard, if you would permit us to show you?” Spock murmurs, his stance a mirror image of Jim’s as he stands with his arms folded neatly behind his back. It looks more natural on Spock than the usually expressive Jim but Leonard appreciates it all the same. 

Swallowing dryly, he takes another step towards his bond mates and nods, quite convinced that they can practically taste the anxiety radiating off him. He follows their footsteps towards the bedroom and his heart plummets to the pit of his belly, resigning himself to the inevitability of another fight over his need for personal space. 

The words die on his lips however when he pauses in the entry way, studying the unfamiliar scene before him. There’s the bed they had shared for over three years, but it’s been moved up against the wall to make space for a second bed, a slender twin just wide enough for one person to sleep on comfortably. 

“We.. We understand that you need your space right now, but we didn’t feel right just letting you sleep on the couch every night. We still want you close even if you don’t want to be touched, Bones, if that’s.. okay? We can move the bed out into the other room if you want,” Jim says softly, painfully earnest and wide eyed as he looks at Leonard, begging for him to respond.

McCoy doesn’t know what to say, staring blankly at the bed as if it might give him the answer. Obviously it has nothing to share and instead regards Leonard with wordless judgment the longer he lets the silence drag on.

Finally he’s able to tear himself away and look up at his bond mates, studying the ever so slight pinch of Spock’s eyebrows and the open anxiety in Jim’s face. They did this for him, because they love him and they want him to be happy and comfortable in their presence.

He releases the shaky breath he’s been holding and smiles, the emotion he’s been trying to smother all these weeks threatening to overwhelm him with its intensity. 

“Thank you,” he whispers, stifling a laugh that sounds suspiciously like a sob when Jim visibly sags with relief, the tension bleeding out of his muscles in a rush. The Captain goes abruptly still again when Leonard takes a cautious step towards him and Spock, eyes tracking the movements of McCoy’s hands. 

“I’m afraid that if I talk to you about.. all this… then you’ll realize how little of the me you remember is left and you'll decide you don’t want this broken man anymore,” Leonard confesses, pausing when Spock holds up a finger to interject. 

“If I may, I actually have a suggestion that could prove helpful in that regard,” he murmurs, withdrawing his other hand from behind himself to reveal what looks like a book with a pen attached by a loop of fabric on the side. _How old fashioned,_ McCoy thinks as Spock hands it to him.

When he flips the silver latch on the plain black cover he opens to discover it’s--- empty. It’s empty. 

“I remembered all of the things you had written upon the walls during your time as our resident specter and I thought, perhaps, this might be easier for you than actually speaking about the things that are bothering you,” Spock says cautiously and Leonard is almost knocked flat by the immense wave of gratitude and delight that floods his mind just then and he projects it through the bond, pleased when the knot of tension between Spock’s eyebrows eases just a little. 

Leonard picks up the pen and the words that have been stuck in his throat the last two months flow freely on the paper. 

He turns it around and then looks away, unable to meet his bond mates’ eyes when they read what he has written. 

_I’m terrified that if you touch me then you’ll phase right through me and I’ll remember that none of this is real._

Jim’s choked off whimper is painful to hear and Leonard forces himself to look at them, studying their faces. Jim looks horrified whereas Spock just seems contemplative. 

“What if it is on your terms?” Spock queries, and Leonard’s eyebrows draw together in confusion. 

“What if what is on my terms?” he replies, pulling the notebook against his chest. 

“The touching,” Spock says patiently, returning his arms to behind his back. “What if, instead of waiting in fear for us to touch you, you are the one to initiate all our contact. For the time being, until you feel more comfortable..” 

Doctor Hastings had suggested as much to Leonard but he hadn’t yet figured out a way to broach the idea with his bond mates. Now, it turns out, he doesn’t have to because he apparently has the most perceptive, understanding bond mates in the entire quadrant. Bond mates he's been neglecting for the last several weeks.

“That.. That would actually be a really big help,” Leonard admits, once more overwhelmed with relief and an incomprehensible amount of gratitude. His bond mates still want him in their lives. They’ve probably spent weeks trying to figure out how to meet Leonard’s needs and he’s never loved them more in his life than he does right at this moment.

“But I need you to promise not to touch me back until I ask for it,” he adds in a rush, knowing that this could be the deal breaker. He needs to know that he can trust Spock and Jim not to rush this if he reaches out for them. 

He can feel Jim’s automatic resistance to the idea of not being allowed to touch Leonard at all. He’s always been a tactile man, filled with hugs and slaps to the back and shoulder squeezes that McCoy is now begging him to withhold for the unforeseeable future. Jim puts his arms behind his back once more and nods, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“We swear, Bones. No touching until you ask for it,” Jim promises earnestly, projecting reassurance and an endearing amount of honesty through the bond. 

Before he can second guess himself, Leonard reaches up and very, very gingerly runs his fingers through Jim’s hair, ruffling the neatly parted hair until it looks properly messy again. 

“That’s been bothering me since I entered the room,” he breathes, ignoring the reflexive wave of panic that rises up in his chest at the skin to skin contact. He can feel Jim straining against his desire to keep to his word, warring with his need to bundle Bones up in his arms and hold him until everything was okay again. 

Needing a break from the intensity of Kirk’s feelings, Leonard turns to Spock, who has been standing patiently at attention this entire time, clearly wanting his turn but also respecting the promises he’s just made. McCoy loves him all the more for it and he smiles, reaching out to run his fingertips along the familiar path up and over Spock’s pointed ear. 

“Doctor Hastings has suggested that I… that _we_ all might benefit from, maybe, doing a session together once in a while,” he confesses, withdrawing his hand from his bond mates and wrapping it tightly around the notebook once more. “If you want.” 

The exasperated sigh explodes noisily from Jim and McCoy fixes him with a dangerous look, watching Jim roll his eyes affectionately. 

“Of course we want to, Bones. You gotta believe we would do anything for you,” he says with fond huff of laughter, aborting the reflexive shoulder pat and landing it on Spock’s elbow instead, fingers curling around the slender joint. And, funny thing is, Leonard actually does believe him this time.

He supposes it really shouldn’t be all that shocking, considering that this is the fourth anniversary of the day he had pledged to give all of himself to these two. All of himself definitely includes his trust at the very least. 

Jim’s eyes light up suddenly and he releases Spock, pivoting on his heel and disappearing out into the living room once more. 

“There’s one more surprise I almost forgot,” he calls over his shoulder and Leonard follows behind Spock, wary all over about more unknown variables. Jim is rummaging through his desk and when he turns back to face them there’s a small black velvet box in his palm. 

“Jim,” Leonard begins, and once again Spock holds up a hand to stop him before he launches into an unnecessary tirade. The fight goes out of him instantly and he closes his mouth with an annoyed click, eyes fixed on the Vulcan as he and Jim both get down on one knee in front of him. 

“We know what you’ve said in the past about old Earth traditions,” Jim murmurs, and Leonard notices the quiver in his words, “But we also know from the things you wrote in the Jefferies tube that you weren’t being quite truthful with us when you gave your reasons for not needing any sort of physical proof of the bond.” Feeling the heat rising in his cheeks as it is wont to do when anyone brings up the embarrassing confessions he had scrawled out for all to see, McCoy opens his mouth to protest and is again stopped by a somber glance from Spock. 

“If physical reassurance from us makes you feel unsafe we thought perhaps an object might offer the same comfort in the moments you find yourself doubting your own existence,” Spock says in that low, rumbling tone of his, expression muted and eyes fixed on Leonard’s. “And denying the depth of our regard for you.” 

Jim opens the box and nestled inside are three gold wedding bands, identical in color and design. Leonard takes it from him with trembling hands, running his thumb across the smooth, unassuming metal. He realizes that Jim and Spock are anxiously waiting for his response and he can’t help but smile, just a small one but a smile nonetheless, expression softening with affection.

“You’re a couple of sentimental fools, y’know that?” he sighs, plucking the rings out and letting the box fall to the floor. He’s the one doing the interrupting this time and before Jim can rush out the apology that’s on the tip of his tongue, Leonard grabs his still outstretched hand and jams the biggest ring in the group onto his finger. 

“I suppose that makes me an even bigger fool for loving you two so goddamn much.”

He’s gentler when he slides the next ring onto Spock’s slender finger, hesitating only slightly before finally slipping the final ring onto his own. It’s heavy and solid, a firm reminder that the bond he shares with these men is the realest thing he’s ever going to experience. 

Wishing he could muster up the nerve to kiss them he instead stands back awkwardly, allowing them to rise back up onto their feet. The air around them is heavily charged with emotion and Leonard is terrified that one of them is going to break down and reach out for him without warning. 

Instead, Spock and Jim trade a silent look before they both raise their hands, pointer and index fingers pressed together in offering. Leonard has the final say in the matter, to return the proffered Vulcan kiss or not, as he recognizes the traditional gesture for what it is. A peace offering, a promise that starting now Leonard’s healing process is going to be on his own terms and no one else’s.

He reaches out and nervously brushes his fingertips, first against Jim’s, then Spock’s, before his arm drops back to his side. He projects as much affection and gratitude towards them through the bond as he can muster, the smile returning to his face. 

“They’re serving steak and potatoes tonight, Bones. The last of the real food until our next space dock. Spock and I were thinking of heading over early before there’s none left,” Jim offers casually, bouncing on his toes with barely concealed excitement. Leonard is relieved for the change of pace after the heaviness of the last several minutes and nods, tucking the notebook and pen into the back pocket of his trousers. 

“Promise me you’ll at least think about eating a vegetable,” McCoy replies with the long suffering sigh of one who has since given up trying to force Jim Kirk into doing anything he doesn’t want. Spock’s eyes crinkle with amusement just ever so slightly and he turns to lead the way, arms folded neatly behind him as always. 

Leonard walks a half a step behind them, just far enough away that their shoulders won’t accidentally brush, and watches his bond mates as they bicker affectionately about the nutritional value of vegetables, both familiar and reassuring in its consistency. He stops for a moment and simply lets himself drink in the sight of them, these two reckless, noble idiots he trusts with his life. They both pause when they realize he isn’t right behind them anymore and turn to look, concern and warmth radiating out towards Leonard through the bond. 

“My name is Doctor Leonard McCoy,” he begins, forcing out the words that have been stuck in his throat since the day he had reappeared. “I am bonded to S’chn T’gai Spock and James Tiberius Kirk. We have been bonded for four years. I love them, with all my heart and soul.”

Leonard pauses and takes a deep, shuddering breath, releasing his fears of rejection and abandonment to the empty air where they belong. 

“I am remembered.” 

And he takes the first step away from the past and towards his future, a future that is currently regarding him with matching expressions of devoted tenderness. 

“You are remembered,” Spock and Jim both agree, and for the first time since Zebonia V, Leonard lets himself believe that they speak the truth.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at lenardmccoy!


End file.
